Something Was Happening
Something was happening!
And a boss raid.
"Hey, don't you dare pass out! Potion—where's the damn potion?!"
As if the words themselves had summoned it, a situation demanding potions had arrived.
"Guh… I-I'm sorry…"
"No! Where's the emergency red potion?!"
Fortunately—if one could call it that—the injured party wasn't Sang-jin.
It was the rookie who'd joined them for the first time.
Though he ranked at the upper end of D-class, tankers were a profession with a brutal injury rate and a high retirement rate. The rear-line ranged dealers had put him up as their shield, saying he showed real promise—only for him to take a critical hit blocking a surprise pattern: the boss monster's tentacles bursting straight out of the ceiling.
"Hngh… No potions… They're too expensive…"
"Damn it."
Figures. What money would a rookie have?
Sang-jin looked past himself and the colleague who'd come to tend the rookie, toward where the raid was still underway.
His sister-in-law and the deputy master leading this raid, Han Mi-na, had stepped to the front line, punching holes through the tentacles with water pressure while the dealers severed them clean off.
Not the stalling strategy they'd planned—a speedrun. With Han Mi-na guzzling blue potions like water, the costs would skyrocket, but the clear time would shrink dramatically.
Even that shortened window, however, was more than the rookie could endure.
A tentacle had punched through his shield and skewered his torso. Beyond the blood loss, the cavity where his organs should have been was simply empty. Only his tanker constitution had kept him from dying on the spot.
There was only one thing that might still save him.
A high-grade red potion.
Of all days…
Of course this disaster had to strike on the one day he hadn't brought one.
His colleague beside him had none either. The other hunters mid-raid would have some, but they couldn't halt a boss fight already in progress.
"Shit…"
The colleague who'd helped drag the rookie into the corner wore a complicated expression, hand buried in his inner pocket, unable to bring himself to pull anything out.
Sang-jin understood.
A contract rookie they'd never met before this raid. His colleague talked rough, but he wasn't a bad guy. Even if they used a potion, the guild would only partially reimburse them since the rookie wasn't a full member—and ordering a replacement red potion from a workshop took time.
His colleague was a D-class hunter with rough finances at home. He'd already used a potion last time and had scraped together the money for this replacement with a heavy heart.
More than anything, he hesitated because he didn't believe a mid-grade potion would keep the rookie alive until the raid ended.
Sang-jin's assessment was the same.
Still—they couldn't just let a kid die without even trying.
A low-grade potion won't do much against a wound this critical, but…
"Hey. I'll cover whatever the company doesn't reimburse and lend you a high-grade, so just—"
Splash—
As he spoke, Sang-jin poured potion over the wound.
He'd use his own first, then his colleague's mid-grade next.
"……"
"Hey, hurry up. We need to pour before time runs out—why are you just staring at the wound… huh?"
And then.
"…Holy shit."
They witnessed a miracle.
Han Mi-na approached the boss monster—the tentacle creature that ruled this dungeon—with a high-grade blue potion clenched between her teeth, closing to point-blank range.
With razor-sharp senses, she tore apart a tentacle lunging for the back of her head without even looking, one hand outstretched—while the other gathered mana, intensifying the water pressure of the Water Jet she gripped like a sword.
At last.
Shhk—
She split the beast's heart—its mana core—with the Water Jet.
Given how freely she'd been drinking potions, the clear time was blisteringly fast.
Yet as Han Mi-na severed the beast's head for good measure, her expression was grim.
Fast—but not fast enough.
…He's probably dead.
She'd known the moment of the injury. A wound so critical that even a single high-grade potion couldn't guarantee survival.
And when she'd glanced toward the rear while jamming the potion into her mouth, her sister's husband Park Sang-jin—the one most likely to have a high-grade potion on hand—had looked thoroughly grim.
Given his personality and finances, it wouldn't have been about the cost. He simply hadn't had one.
So it was over.
Mid-grade and high-grade potions were qualitatively different. There was no chance the rookie was still alive.
And yet…
"Whoa. Completely clean? He even stood up?"
"Thank you, thank you so much… Two whole high-grade potions… How can I ever repay this kindness…"
When she retrieved the beast's core and turned around, the rear was anything but silent—it was chaotic.
The untimely commotion inside a still-active dungeon had a simple cause: a wound that should have been fatal had healed clean, and the injured man had fully recovered and was standing on both feet.
What, did he have a high-grade potion after all?
No—one high-grade potion wouldn't produce results that good.
Then Han Mi-na spotted two empty bottles.
Ah. He'd used two.
With two high-grade potions, of course.
At the same time, she was impressed.
She'd known her twin had fallen for Park Sang-jin at first sight when he visited her guild, and that she'd decided to marry him despite what Mi-na considered a pushover personality—but to pour potions like water even knowing the guild would never cheerfully reimburse six hundred million won?
Those were potions Han Ye-na had slipped him, no doubt. Maybe Mi-na would quietly kick in half—three hundred million.
Anyway, it was time to tell everyone to cut the fuss, clean up, and head back.
The preliminary survey had rated this gate highly profitable, so they'd preserved it—leaving the core that sustained the gate and only dealing with the boss. Since they weren't clearing the gate and had to retrace their path out, she needed to hurry the raid members along.
She was about to do exactly that.
Until a stupid remark stopped her cold.
"…Hey, Park Sang-jin. You're saying this is a low-grade potion?"
A hollow laugh escaped her on reflex.
Ha. There was a limit to how absurd you could get.
The bottle was mid-grade size at minimum—how could that possibly be low-grade?
"Uh, Uncle Han-seok, are you high?"
"Low-grade my ass."
Rookie and veteran alike—everyone present stared at the speaker in disbelief.
It was the kind of idiotic statement that made you wonder whether the boss monster they'd just cleared had a mind-scrambling skill.
…And yet, strangely, the denial that should have come never arrived, no matter how much time passed.
"……"
Sang-jin, the one who'd used the potion, didn't contradict the claim.
The silence meant only one impossible thing.
…No way.
No way that was actually—
"It's really a low-grade potion?"
At the raid leader's murmur, every gaze swung to her, then locked back on Sang-jin.
Under the weight of their attention, Sang-jin opened and closed his mouth.
"Uh… well, you see…"
Something was happening.
Thud!
"Hey! Where's the workshop the captain bought potions from?!"
Meanwhile, something was happening elsewhere too.
At the training grounds of a classified government hunter unit.
A woman in a pointed witch hat—overdone fried hair, heavy makeup, and a sensual black mermaid dress—had pinned a man in square glasses against the wall.
Some might have clutched their hearts at what looked like a romantic wall-pin—a kabedon, that thrilling scene from every drama.
Bang!
If the wall hadn't crumbled in the shape of a fist, cement dust cascading down.
"I'm asking you, weakling. Tell me where the captain bought those potions."
The woman who'd punched the wall interrogated him in a voice thick with threat.
Her target: the frail man being cornered, Deputy Team Leader Kim Seo-won, the unit's buffer. She wanted the workshop where he'd gone with the captain to buy red potions.
Of course, Seo-won—who'd survived three years as a non-convict in a unit mostly composed of prisoners—calmly pushed his glasses up with his middle finger.
His voice, however, was less calm.
"A-ah, n-no, why are you asking m-me? Ask the t-team leader…"
"Fuck, I already asked the captain and one guy already got his ass beat, okay? You think I'd go ask again? Huh?"
The woman in the pointed hat ground her teeth.
The person this balloon-doll of a man was referring to was someone called "Captain" even when no convict unit members were around.
Servel—special team leader of the unit that housed hunter criminals serving reform sentences, and once a member of a top-tier hunter team.
True to her origins as an Empire elf, she wielded a bow—and she was just as good at swinging it as shooting it. Even if the entire unit rushed her at once, none of them could take her in close combat.
If that team leader wouldn't talk, wasn't it only natural to ask the guy who ranked dead last in combat power despite being deputy team leader?
Fuck, this is exactly why the team leader won't tell anyone.
Seo-won swallowed a curse under the root-level threat. But the witch's fist was close and the team leader was far away.
So he gently redirected the conversation.
"Why are you looking for that workshop? Did something go wrong after drinking it?"
Whatever was wrong with the question, the irritable woman's face softened into pure bewilderment.
What came back was genuine confusion.
"You haven't tried it?"
"Well, I mean…"
A little kid made it, so he hadn't trusted it enough to drink. The kid was cute, sure, but drinking it? Honestly, come on.
The pharmacy name was sketchy—"Magic Pharmacy"—and it was near a slum. The team leader had dragged him along, saying she'd pay out of pocket and pretend it was unit operating funds, so he'd gone—but of course he hadn't planned to drink any, and he hadn't taken even one of the ten bottles.
Buffers rarely needed red potions in the first place. Even if he'd taken one, there was no way he'd need it within three or four days.
"Shit, I hate talking to clueless bastards… Fine. I'm telling you this as a special favor. Listen gratefully and spill the workshop location."
Still curious, he figured he might as well hear her out.
"So get this—"
"…Are you on drugs?"
And what followed was shocking.
"I'm fucking serious. Is it that hard to understand that half a bottle reattached some bastard's arm?"
That they'd blown each other's arms off sparring—fine, he'd given up expecting better from them.
But half a bottle reattached an arm?
That they'd tested all kinds of things and even a Meigobang was fully covered by two bottles?
That just drinking it without being injured made your strength increase?
"I don't know why they lied and called it low-grade, but whatever—just give me the workshop address. I'm not gonna raid the place. I'll just healthily share the secret formula and use it for my own potions."
More shocking than the fact that she'd self-harmed to test potions, or that she'd drunk a three-hundred-million-won bottle like a soft drink without even being hurt—was the certainty that the results afterward weren't lies.
"……"
But thinking it through, the witch in front of him had no reason to lie.
These were people who got drug-tested once a week, so hallucinating on something was out. And there was zero reason to risk getting beaten by the team leader over a mere low-grade potion.
Having convinced himself, Seo-won nodded.
In that case, what he had to say was clear.
"Then could I have just one bottle too…"
"You moron. You think any are left?"
A grating, mocking laugh rang in his ears.
"……"
Hearing that laugh, he made up his mind.
The moment his shift ended today, he was going straight to that pharmacy.
"Hey, so where the hell is the workshop? You wanna answer after I hit you?"
"…I-if you hit me, I'll tattle to the team leader."
"Augh, you cowardly bastard. I'm a non-combat class too, okay? Let's settle this fair and square, fist to fist! I'll count to three. Three, two—"
"T-team leader, I know you're listening! If you don't help me, I'll spill everything!"
"You cowardly little—"
"Our deputy team leader's gotten bold. Threatening his superior and everything. …And you?"
"Eek, Captain! Th-that's not what I—"
Obviously, he was going alone. In secret.
And so, many people resolved to visit Sia's pharmacy after work.
Click.
Click.
But the first to arrive at the pharmacy was none of them.
She was.
"She spent seven hundred million… in a place like this…?"